Reviews of 'Unsung Heroes'

Rating:

Unsung Heroes is, quite simply, a collection of characters usable as NPCs for dungeon masters or as pregenerated player characters for players.

There are a number of characters to choose from in this book, as well as a few dragons (including some notable ones, such as Skie). Many of these characters use some kits from AD&D 2nd edition. While this seems to work in some cases, it doesn't so much in others.

The characters within were collected from the old trading cards, or taken from modules such as Knight's Sword or Flint's Axe. Most are average at best. There are a few good ones, most of which come from the modules mentioned above, and there are some bad ones.

The absolute worst is a tinker gnome illusionist who has supposedly completed three Life Quests. He is said to be a liar, yet for some reason other gnomes believe him. Surely, his lies would require a gnomish committee to sort through!

Some characters have no reason to adventure. For example, one character is a pacifist mage who gets involved in the Blue Lady's War, then hides in the forest and becomes a hermit.

One of the worst problems in the character backgrounds was the overuse of draconians as an antagonist. I counted several characters who were in one way or another ran across draconians in their past.

There's some characters that are a bit silly, such as the kender swashbuckler, Teekli Quickstep. After a bit of thought, I found that I could invoke some humor in my games with such a character.

Some racial stereotypes were kept as well. The dwarf cleric worships Reorx. There's a kender handler in there as well as a tinker gnome. I was glad to see Pentrian the Rabbit, a kender cleric. Teekli Quickstep, as mentioned above, also breaks the stereotypes.

This book offers some ready-to-use characters for those running 2nd edition games, or easy-to-convert characters for those running 3rd edition games. There may be a few characters here and there that might be of interest, but otherwise, you may want to use caution before picking it up. My advice is to look it over thoroughly before you buy it.

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